Grails, holy or otherwise

Grailn.the Holy Grail, in medieval legend, the cup or platter used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper.
[from French from Latin gradalis = dish] — The Hutchinson Encyclopedic Dictionary 1991

This, a cup or chalice, is the common conception of the Holy Grail when it’s featured in novels, comics and films; in a more abstract sense it’s casually abused by lazy journalists when they want an easy metaphor for the ultimate or the unobtainable.

But the grail’s origins are more complex than popular culture would have you imagine, a fact that has given rise to varied theories purporting to have identified the real grail, often followed by fictional treatments latching on to the latest or most outlandish claim. In one sense, there is no one grail but several grails, and in another sense the whole concept is a chimaera, a fantastical concoction of real objects, wishful thinking and spiritual abstractions.

Confused? Well, you’re in great company. Over the decades I’ve come across scholarly studies, pseudohistories and fictional takes on the nature of the grail, nearly all contradicting each other, and more continue to litter my literary path and confuse as they bemuse. Below is a selection of my reviews of some of these, a selection which will be expanded as I add more reviews.

Whether they help you to sort the wheat from the chaff, the sublime from the mundane or the genuine from the jocular is another matter.